Castles in the Highlands of Scotland.


This is the first Castle we saw in Aboyne, Scotland.
Chris, Noreen and Thomas live in the gatehouse on
the Aboyne Estate and know the owners personally.
Notice the trampoline in the yard. This castle owner
lives here with his family and builds new homes in the area.
Many other castles are run by the National Trust of Scotland and give tours.














This is the gatehouse on the Aboyne estate
and the Halvorsen's home. They have a courtyard
across the street and some acreage beside them
where they will keep horses some day soon.
The house sits on the corner of the road that leads into
the estate and there are large gates at the entrance.
The inside of the gatehouse is beautiful especially after Chris
and Noreen have done much work inside to update it.















This is the back of their gatehouse and the fenced in yard.














This picture is kind of dark, but this is the house we stayed in 15 min. from Aboyne in the Parish of Ballater. We arrived in Scotland on Friday evening and after driving thru the Aboyne Estate with Noreen so we could see where the Halvorsens live we got some groceries and got settled into this house. It used to be what they call an "Outhouse" which in Scotland means a place to keep the animals. It was beautiful inside with two seperate wings. Each wing had two bedrooms, two sitting rooms, two bathrooms. There was a common kitchen, laundry rm, dinning rm, and living rm. It sits about a mile from Ballater out in the country. A couple of days I walked into Ballater on a trail for bikers and walkers. Larry and Glenna Grandia stayed in the other suite and we shared breakfast of scones, eggs and bacon together. They were delightful and lots of fun. Noreen and Thomas are standing out in front of the house.

This is the living rm. You can see the carpet is a plaid. When the Halvorsen's came over to see us we would gather in this front room and Thomas and I would play a game on the table. You can see the furniture is very low to the floor and surprisingly quite comfortable.

The kitchen had a new kerosene stove and boiler pictured on the right. The top was a grill and it had an oven. It also regulated the heated floors in the house. Everything was like new and was fully stocked with whatever dishes, cooking utensils, toaster, etc. you would need to live there.

This was our bedroom on the main floor. We had a bath with shower and a main bath with a tub and heated towel rack down the hall. Each suite had it's own thermostat and a very comfy bed.

Here we are in the courtyard entrance to church in Aberdeen. We enjoyed the meetings and then were able to meet the stake president, who then set Chris apart for a stake calling with Marc and Larry's help. They also helped Chris give Thomas a father's blessing for the start of school. How wonderful to know the church is the same all the way across the world and the people have such a testimony of the Gospel, the Lord and of our prophet, President Hinckley. I was very touched by the testimonies given and grateful to be in Scotland to witness them.

I should have walked around to the front of the church to take this picture, but you can see (even from the back) that it is a typical LDS building of brick.

I took this picture of a newer housing development on the outskirts of Aberdeen. The homes you see are not built of granite, but a cheeper material to keep them low cost. All the old homes were a gray granite and not as pretty as the the pink granite with black and gray specks that the Highland homes were built with. The next picture shows the lay of the land next to these houses and what the area looked like for many miles on our way to Aboyne. Fields of sheep and lots of cows of differing colors fenced in with these stone walls.

This is a highland cow called a "Wooly". They are raised mostly for show. Marc was laughing at me as I was taking this picture, because I was doing a jig in the middle of the road trying to get it to raise it's head and look at me, but then the black one decided I was kooky and looked up.

The six of us visited Crathes Castle Monday morning. The Castle was started in 1574 and took 40 years to build. Was lived in by the Burnett family for 350 years.

There was a crane parked in front when we arrived and by the time our tour got to the top floor, the guy in the bucket was working just outside one of the open windows. His view and ours of the gardens was beautiful!

This clock is way up on top of the castle.

Would ya like to be this laddie up trimmin the shrubs?

I took this picture in the kitchen before I realized that I wasn't supposed to take any inside the castle. From here we walked to the foyer and front door. Most castles only had one main door that was thick wood with a heavy metal gate to keep barred from the inside. The Foyer was very small and you walked up spiral stairs to get to each floor. In this castle the rooms at one time had beautiful painted ceilings, but they had been covered over by plaster by one of the more recent owners.

This picture of the gardens is what the family would have seen from the second floor "high hall".. It was said that the family would push back the furniture at night and pallets would be brought into the room to sleep on. On the upper floors were rooms where they would house guests. These rooms had painted ceilings with large wood beams that had sayings carved into them. One Burnett wife had 21 children in 23 years and her bedroom was done victorian style. The Laird's bedroom had an intracately carved bed and huge carved dresser dated 1594. On the top floor was the Laird's "office" where he could exercise or sit behind a large table and judge people brought to him that were accused of doing something wrong, etc.

The next few pictures we took in the gardens at Crathes. The season for the most flowers in bloom had already passed, but the gardens were beautiful still. Marc and I and Noreen and Chris enjoying a walk thru the gardens.

Larry and Glenna Grandia, our housemates and new friends.

There were four walkways that led to this tree in the center and different flowers along each one.

There were many benches like this tucked away in the shrubs and flowers.

Reflections of the beauty of Crathes Castle Gardens.

Noreen is laughing because she was taking a picture of Marc taking a picture of me!! Aren't these Dahlias beautiful.

Marc and Larry are standing in front of some Thistle, the National Flower of Scotland.

Glenna on the Yew walk.

Larry, Chris and Noreen admiring the workmanship of the gardener.

Ok...so Glenna and I took a little more time than these two handsome guys wanted us to in the gardens! They were very patient and enjoying the sunshine that was abundant this day. Most days we woke to cloudy skis and a little drizzle. Then it would clear off and be sunny for a couple of hours which was perfect for our rendezvous with the Halvorsens.

This huge Redwood tree was one of 2000 from CA given to Scotland and given to the different estates. Chris went over to check it out. He looks very small in comparison. We were amazed at the size of the shrubs, trees, flowers. The Holly trees were huge The growing season is longer in Scotlant and Noreen said they are about a month behind us. We picked blackberries that were just ripening. The highlands get one week of snow usually after Christmas, unless you live in the highest elevations. Then it may last a little longer.

Later Monday we took a drive to Craigievar Castle. The grounds around this castle were stark and bare compared to Crathes. Lots of very old trees, but no flower gardens. This castle owner had cattle and sheep that grazed around the base of the castle and if a rustler came along to try to steal any of them, there were holes carved out near the windows in the upper rooms of the castle that the owner could shoot the theives without having to come out. Same heavy door with heavy metal gate on the inside to keep enemies out.

I obviously was standing on a hill, because the castle is not really leaning to the left! Ha!



We are waiting for the tour to begin. This wall is only part of the original one that was built on the west side of the castle.


Craigievar was built 1610-1626. Owned by the Forbes family. The ceilings are very decorative with plasterwork in all designs that took crafters two years to finish. Many of the rooms have carved wood panaled walls. One owner sorely neglected the castle and the top floor roof caved in and had to be replaced in 1825. One round stone stairway takes you up to each floor and another more narrow stairway used by the servants takes you down and opens up into the great hall from inside a closet in the corner. We came down thru this hidden staircase. Cool!

This is the land around Craigievar. Lots of round bales of hay in the fields and hills in the backround.


Thomas inside the branches of one of the trees on the grounds of Craigievar Castle.


Last but not least is Balmoral Castle. This is the Queen of England's Castle and a flag is flying, which means she is in residence. It is the Royal Families' favorite retreat. You can only see it for a few seconds from the road as you travel from Braemar to Aboyne. We stopped on the road so I could get this picture. You see only the towers, but it is actually very large and spread out . Much more so than the others we saw. No tours while she is there. When you drive by the road leading to the castle you can't see much because of all the trees. It is very private. Pictures of the back show open yard, lots of gardens and a fountain.

That's it for these four castles we saw. We had a wonderful time with Chris, Noreen, Thomas and the Grandias. More pics to come on the next blog.